Pilgernator and LoopyPaladin
by CrazyNinjaChild
Summary: This is a story I've been writing on my free time, still unfinshed but I'll upload chapter after chapter after I submit this. This is a bit long but people have found it enjoyable. This is in no way a fanfic about anyone in the actualy halo games.


Beep! "Base calling, is anyone there?... Hello? Base calling, is anyone there?"

An awkward silence filled the comm system.

"Base calling, will someone pick up the-"

"Oh will you shut up for one minute? You've been jamming my transmissions all day. Don't you guys ever give up?" Said a gruffy voice on the other end of the comm.

"S-sorry sir! But we've got some news, the new recruit has come in from training and we are sending him to your location on the double."

"Alright, well send him in. Oh, when do you think he'll be in?"

"Well, sir, by the looks of it, any minute now. I wouldn't say more than 5 minutes."

"5 Minutes? That's insane! Did you guys invent a new form of hyperspace travel within the past month? You could have given me a bit more time to clean up base!"

"Well sir, we have been trying to contact you all day and you haven't been picking up! We cannot be held responsible for any-"

"Ssh! No excuses, I have to clean up this shit-hole. Oh, and you better train some new recruits up, I have a feeling this one's going to die faster than the last one. Pilgernator out." The transmission ended with an abrupt click followed by a series of beeps. "Fucking noobs..." he said as he picked up bits pf scrap metal laying around. Not a moment later the noise of a drop ship came from outside base. "Shit, better go meet the new guy." Pilgernator trudged out of the room and went out the door, the ship was just landing on the dusty surface of the Gulch. The ship came to a sudden halt above the ground and dropped without the landing gear, there were a series of crashes and bangs followed by the access door opening. The new guy came tumbling out and hit a nearby rock.

"Ow, what the fu-" Started the new guy but was cut off by the commanding officer.

"And if you ever touch our shit again I will rip off your leg and beat you with the wet end! You understand rookie?" Screamed the officer. The new guy backed up a bit more against the rock.

"Yes sir! Absolutely sir! I was just seeing what that button did!"

"Well if you wanna know something, read for goddamn manual for once! Can't you do anything right rookie?" The officer sighed and walked over to Pilgernator. "This guy is something else, he'll get himself killed soon enough. We're preparing another recruit for training as we speak, this guy won't last long." They looked over at the rookie, he was collecting himself up as he dusted off the sand and grime off of his armor. "Try not to lose your sanity okay? We need you out there." The officer patted Pilgernator on the shoulder and walked back to the ship.

"Will do sir." Pilgernator said, looking at the new guy walking over. He was wearing maroon armor, Mark VI, with an Assault Rifle on his back. The rookie got a few paces from Pilgernator and stopped.

"Hello sir! LoopyPaladin here for buisness!" He said, his hand shot up to his forehead in a salute. "Now I don't mean to rush you, but when do we get to do some ass-kicking!" His hands shot for his AR, he pulled it off and started wildly looking down the sights at everything as if something was going to pop out from behind a rock.

Pilgernator sighed, "Well... Loopy... We need to go inside the base and recieve orders from the big guys upstairs. And then we take our speeder over there and drive to the designated location."

"Oh well. Do you have any food?"

"Yes, we have some in the fridge inside the base... But whatever you do, do NOT touch my peanut butter!"

"Okay suh'! No touchy your nut butter!" Loopy ran inside the base.

"Fucking new guy..." Pilgernator followed LoopyPaladin into the base and walked into the kitchen, Loopy had his hand half way down the peanut butter jar.

Loopy looked up, "Holy shit! This shit's amazing! I could nom this all day long!" Loopy continued to stick his hand in the jar and pull out massive handfuls of peanutbutter.

"Why you ignorant little noob! I WILL PILGERNATE YOU!" Pilgernator picked up Loopy by the neck and threw him out the door. "You are sleeping outside tonight. Any objections, you can go fuck yourself. Have fun with the elite patrols going by." Pilgernator slammed the door.

"Elite patrols? What was he talking about... oh well!" Loopy licked of all of the peanut butter that was left on his glove.

Pilgernator sat in a chair watching television. "It's almost dark out, I wonder how Loopy is doing? The elite patrols will be along soon enough and I'll have a new recruit by tomorrow... Oh well." Pilgernator got up and turned the TV off, he threw himself onto his bed and gazed up at the cieling. He started to feel drowzy and he drifted off to sleep.

Meanwhile...

Loopy was slouched over on the side of the base, he was eagerly awaiting the coming of these elite patrosl and Pilgernator was talking about. "I'm sick of waiting, if they're going to come, then they better come right now or I'm going to go out into the vast emptiness, and find them my fucking self!" Loopy got up and took his AR off his back and looked out into the distance, a big deep blue vehicle was slowly approaching from the east. "Could it be-" Loopy squinted his eyes to see better in the dark. It was definatly a convenant vehicle, and by the looks of it could only carry 2 or 3 people in it at one time.

The vehicle started to pick up immense speed as it came down a hill towards base. A bunch of neon blue lights lit up oh the back and sped up the vehicle even more. The vehicle was about 20 feet away when 2 armed elite patrols came out of the vehicle.

"Put your hands up and put them behind your back! NOW! Good good, now get down on your knees, good. I see that you can obey commands very well. Ah, you must be the new guy? Yeah, okay." The patrol turned to his partner and started whispering something in his ear. "Very well, we won't kill you... yet. Instead we will use you as a pawn in our plan for domination..."

In the base Pilgernator was woken up by the chatter of elites. "Oh shit, this could get bad." He got out of bed and went silently up the escape hatch on the roof and looked over at their conversation. Loopy was on his knees with his AR a few feet away from him. Pilgernator took a pistol off of his back and aimed it straight for Loopy's right leg. BANG! The shot hit.

"Ow! What the fucking FUCK just happened?" Loopy screamed, clutching his wound.

The elites looked above for any signs of the attacker, but they couldn't see him because of his blue armor blending on with the night sky.

Pilgernator took out his Sniper Rifle and put the night vision on since he couldnt see the elite's blue armor that well in the night. He lined up the shot so that it was on the left soldiers neck, Bang! Hit. The other elite rushed over to help his wounded partner. Bang! He shot the other elite in the head. "Boom, headshot." Pilgernator climbed down thhe service ladder down to Loopy, "You alright? Hope I didn't hit any major muscles or anything."

"That was YOU? You whore! Why did you shoot me in the leg! This is insanity! If this is how a life at base is for you then I absolutely cannot do it!"

"No, I'm sorry if I hurt you too badly, I just needed a diversion or else those elites would have taken you prisoner and used you as bait for our troops to go in on a rescue mission and get slaughtered. Now, get inside. I'll treat to your wounds as soon as possible."

Loopy looks up at Pilgernator, "What's with the nice guy attitude now? I thought you hated my ass a couple hours ago."

"Well, I can't leave a troop behind. Even if it means taking overly desperate measures." Pilgernator helped Loopy up and got him inside the base and sat him down on the chair. It took a while but the wound healed up nicely. "By the way... The name's Pilgernator."

"LoopyPaladin."

"Yes... I know."

* * *

CHAPTER 2

"Now, let's go over the rules again." Stated Pilgernator.

"Fuck, man, how do you expect me to remember your stupid rules while I have a goddamn bullet in my ankle?"

"Shut up, recite the rules, starting from number one."

Loopy scrunched up his face, then looked up thoughtfully. "Um, first is... No touching your nut butter! Unless I'm dying... Second, Sit down and shut up until I'm needed, and third is... Uum..."  
"Come on Loopy, you know this one." There was a long pause, "Loopy? Think you ugly bastard, THINK!"

"OH!" Loopy hopped up from the rock he was sitting on a moment ago, "Don't be a noob!" Loopy felt proud of his memory.

"Good; now that you've got the rules down," Pilger pushed Loopy over back onto the rock, Loopy fumbled over and landed on his face. "Let's go inside!" Pilger briefly teabagged Loopy and ran inside the house.  
"Oh you rat BASTARD!" Loopy screamed and got up off his knees and launched himself at Pilger.

They both tumbled to the ground and started cursing at each other excessively, fighting in the dusty patch in front of the base. They both stopped screaming profanities and got up, dusting off their armor.

"So, did you get the new armor upgrades command sent for us about a week back?" Pilgernator asked Loopy.

"What upgrades? I haven't recieved word from command since I got here, and even then I should've had it before I got here!" "Hm, so you don't have any special abilities? I have a camo! I can shoot those ugly blue bastards before they ever knew I was there! ...Heh, noobs." Pilger started laughing to himself, talking about shooting all kinds of covenant. After 20 seconds or so, Loopy cut in.

"Shut up! I want a damn upgrade! Why the hell am I left out of anything interesting that happens in this motherfucker? I want some goddamn justice! I want..." Loopy went on for a good 2 and a half minutes before Pilger punched him in the chest.  
"Shut up, just shut up. If you want something then go into the fridge and get one."

"...The fridge? Why the fuck are the ARMOR upgrades in the fridge? Should'nt you be keeping your nut butter in there or something?"

"Hey, you don't keep peanut butter in the fridge, you keep it in a cupboard or a drawer, never a fridge. If you put it in a fridge then it get all cold and hard, and it doesn't melt nicely on your toast like it should. Cold peanut butter might as well be dead, in a sense of course because how could peanut butter live? I mean, that's just ridiculous. But back to subject; yes, the upgrades are in the fridge to keep the systems cool so they last longer on the battlfield... Don't give me that look, Loopy. I read it somewhere in a manual. Don't question it, just go and get your shit."

Loopy walked up to therackety shack that they called a base and opened the door, he walked pass the TV set and recliner that he would usually find Pilger in at this time of day, and walked on into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and saw a carton of milk, a half eaten pizza, and several mechanical devices. "Hmmm, what to choose..." He saw several upgrades and examined each of them;

Sprint, the ability to run faster for a set period of time.

Amor Lock, Makes you invulerable for a short period of time and acts as an EMP over a range.

Jetpack, enables you to fly for a set period of time.

Evade, gives you a sort of 'leap of faith' in one direction, helpful for getting out of CQ Combat.

Drop Shield, drops a shield that acts as a bubble shield and a regenerator.

Hologram, sends out a temporary hologram to confuse enemies.

Loopy looked at all of these treasures, "I guess the camo isn't here because Pilger has it..." Loopy looked around and grabbed the Sprint upgrade. He turned around, closed the fridge and went back out the door. He walked out, no sign of Pilger.

"Hello? Pilger? Here boy!" Loopy whistled sharply, "Come on out-" An invisible hand grabbed Loopy by the shoulders and faded into a blue armor as Loopy was being pulled back. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, eh?" Loopy thought to himself as he was being pulled back onto what seemed to be a knife. Loopy thrust his elbow back into the side of his attacker, the attackter straggled and Loopy took a hold of the guy's shoulders and flipped him over himself. A knife flew up in the air and Loopy made an act to retrieve it as the blue figure was coming into full sight at Loopy's feet. Loopy grabbed the knife and thrust it into the perp's ribcage, carefully avoiding any major organs. The perp screamed. "LOOPY YOU TEAM KILLING FUCK-TARD! I WASN'T GOING TO ACTUALLY KILL YOU!"  
"Pilger? Why the fuck were you putting a knife in my back? Come on man get up, it's just a scratch!."  
"Goddamn, you asshole... Get me inside..."

Loopy pulled the knife out and took Pilger to his recliner and got him a first aid kit.

I think this is the start to a good adventure, much more than anything I've endured so far. This'll be fun, Loopy thought. We'll just have to let this take us where it needs to, and we'll get through this... together.

* * *

CHAPTER 3

Beep! Beep! Beep! The comsat station rang in it's usual high pitched tone.

"Loopy, go get the call! I think it might be command!" Pilger yelled from his recliner. "Hurry up with it, it might be important... LOOPY!"

"I'm getting it, calm your hormones" Loopy walked over to the comsat. *click* "Yo, Loopy here, what's up?"

"Hello LoopyPaladin, may I speak to commander Pilgernator?" The voice said.

"Pilger, the phone's for you! Come get it while it's hot!" Loopy called to Pilger as he got off his recliner. Pilger came up beside Loopy and leaned on the comsat.

"Hello Luitenant, what is it you need from me?"

"Hello Pilgernator, we have a special operation for you. We need you to go to an enemy base a few miles from here, there is an enemy tehre we need eliminated. He is a threast to our entire organisation and he could very well kill us all. We will send a pelican for you as soon as possible, assuming you are going to accept."

"Yes, we accept. Send that pelican over immediately, I would like to get this done fairly quickly. Thank you Luitenant, Pilgernator out." With that Pilgernator pushed the 'End Call' button. "Come on Loopy, suit up. We'll be out of here within the hour."  
"Wait, who the hell said I accepted this mission? Who the hell said I'm risking my ass to save shit?"

"I did, now suit up. I don't want to do this mission alone, it will only make my job longer and harder."

"That's what she saaid!" Loopy said with a sort of ring to his tone.  
"Fuck off," Pilger punched Loopy in the chest, sending him stumbling into a wall. "Suit up, we're going."

Loopy went to his newly added quarters that Pilger had built in, it was small but fit his stuff quite nicely. Loopy put in his upgrade and grabbed his helmet and guns. He picked up an Assault Rifle and Mini-gun. Quite satisfied with how quickly he got ready, he went out of his quarters with a bounce to his step. He strapped his AR to his back and hauled his mini-gun out of the base and leaned it against the left wall. Pilger walked out a couple minutes later, a DMR on his back and a Sniper Rifle in hand. He looked over at the minigun.

"Are you really going to bring a mini-gun to this mission? I do think that stealth would be a much better approach." Pilger took out his knife and started to sharpen it on his armor, "I mean, we're taking out a warlord who at this very moment is going to plan a strike on command, I think we should take him out silently and without attracting too much attention to ourselves. Do you not agree?" Pilger argued.

"No, I do not agree, hence the mini-gun. I think we would be just as successful going in and shooting through every soldier we can find." Loopy said, leaning against the wall. PIlger looked up at him.

"We're soldiers, not savages. Go get your sniper rifle, I don't want to argue any longer." Pilger took his attention back to his knife. "Go on, pelican'll be here soon."

"Fuck off." Loopy mumbled. He picked up his mini-gun and walked back into his quarters. He came back out with his sniper rifle. He looked up and saw that the pelican had just landed and Pilger was climbing into it. Loopy broke into a half jog to the pelican and hopped onto the side seat. "Happy?" Loopy nodded towards the rifle.

"Perfect." He looked at the pilot. "Let's get a move on, we're going to do this quickly." The pilot acknoledged Pilger's request and lifted off this pelican. There was a silence between Pilger and Loopy's radio for a few minutes, Loopy broke the silence.

"So, where is this whore?" He said, Pilger jerked his head towards Loopy.

"Just on the other side of that ridge over there," Pilger pointed towards a series of small moutains followed by a small cliff. "And not every person we go in to kill is a whore. And you need to stop saying that word, I think you might be a whore-oholic." Pilger followed this statement with a short chuckle.

Loopy smiled behind his helmet, "Oh well, for all we know this tugger is trying to overrun us with a series of brothels." The two laughed in unison.

"Yeah, well wouldn't that be a change of pace. And an interesting one at that... Oh! Theres the drop-off point over tehre, we don't want to get too close with the pelican." Pilger looked at the pilot once more, "Land just over there, we can walk the rest of the way!" Pilger said over the radio, and again the pilot acknoledged and landed.

"You guys be safe," He said, "Don't want our two best soldiers killed."

"Hey," Pilger said, "Spartans don't die, we just go missing in action." They all shared a laugh.

"Alright then, take care! Ring back when you need us to get you two out of here."

"Will do, your concern is noted. Pilger and Loopy out!" Pilger said. The pelican lifted off and the two spartans walked off towards the cliff.

As they walked along the moutains, Loopy spoke out.

"So, how many are there? Did command tell us?"

"Well, judging from what command told me after you went to get your stuff... A medium sized human military force is waiting for us over this cliff. Maybe 150 to 200 enemy soldiers."

"What the- 200? Do we have enough ammo to get through these fuckers? I knew I should've brought my mini-gun..."

"Shut up Loopy, and keep you radio clear from here on out, they could be listening in on us right now."

"But how the fu-"

"I said shut the fuck up." Pilger motioned up to a clearing on the rocks that overlooked the base.

They both doubled up there and layed down, positioned their sniper rifles, and aimed at a couple heads.

"It's open season, Loopy, take your pick. Be careful though, we want to take out the upper defenses first so we can sneak in and do the rest with our closer ranged weapons." All of a sudden, Pilger blended into the scenery and Loopy slipped a brown blanket on himself.

They both aimed at a couple of the soldiers. Boom. 2 KIA.

Another round, boom. 4 KIA.

They continued this until they reached over 40 KIAs and Loopy lost track of their kills. They didn't spot any more soldiers on the upper floor and they were running out of sniper ammo. Pilger faded back into view and he looked at Loopy.

"Let's go down, we have more work to do."

With that, they slipped won the rocks and leapt up onto the roof and dropped through a hatch. They both took out their close-range weapons.

"You go that way, I'll go the other." Pilger said, Loopy obeyed orders.

Pilger was going on down the hall and saw a three soldier group inspecting a couple dead bodies. Pilger dropped behind a crate, "Loopy, how many you got down there? I've got a three-man patrol here." He waited a few seconds for a response.

"Yeah, I've got about 4 guys coming down this hallway. I'll let them pass and take them out with my AR."

"Alright, I'll take these guys out. Meet me down in the hall right below this one. Pilger out."

Pilger took out a frag from his belt, took the ring off and rolled out across the hall, it went with a boom and the soldiers went alert to that area. Pilger pushed himself into the top side of the crate and knocked it over. Pilger sped up his heart beat and everything went slower than normal, this way he had more time to think. He quickly lined up the headshots. Boom boom boom. He hit 2 of the three in the head, the other in the chest. THe straggling soldier threw his knife in Pilger's general direction. Pilger hopped from his position and grabbed the knife in mid-air. Pilger did a 360 and threw the knife back, it stuck into the soldier's visor and he dropped to the ground. Pilger went down to the bodies and check for pulses and as he thought there were none alive. There were a clatter of foottsteps coming up the stairwell.

"Shit, Loopy come in. I'm getting a fuckload of men coming in on my radar and I can't do this alone. I can hold them off for a minute but I won't make it if I don't get any goddamn backup!" Pilger wited a few seconds and listened as the footsteps got louder and closer, Pilger went back behind the crate. "Loopy, pick up! I need you help! I've got 10 plus soldiers advancing on my position! Loopy, where the fuck are you? Fuck this." He hung up and tried to think of a strategy.

Pilger looked around and saw a couple plasma grenades on the ground beside him. Pilger picked up 2 of them and he latched them to his belt. He looked up from the crate and saw 12 soldiers on the lookout for any potential threat. Pilger sneaked up and took out 3 of them as quickly as possible and the others caught on to where he was and advanced on his position. "Fuck." One soldier came around the crate and Pilger stuck his knife into his side and killed him. Pilger picked up the body and used it as a sort of shield and shot 4 soldiers from behind the body and ran to another crate and pushed the body away.

"8 down, 4 to go..." He said. Pilger grabbed the two plasma grenades from his belt and threw them both behind himself. PIlger counted down the seconds. Sssssssss- Boom!

Pilger looked out and saw one more soldier left. He didn't want to waste his grenade. Pilger took out another slip from his belt and started loading his DMR. Just as he was getting the clip out of the gun the soldier came over and threw Pilger onto the ground.

"You want a piece of me, you little shit?" The man said.

The soldier pulled out his pistol and pressed it to Pilger's visor. He took off his helmet and smiled mischiefly. "Gnite." He started to squeeze the trigger.

So, this is how it ends? Where's old nut butter when you need him? Fuck... Pilger tought to himself. He closed his eyes beneath his helmet, This is how it ends...

* * *

CHAPTER 4

Loopy was running frantically towards where Pilger's last transmission was, "I knew we should've stayed together, but he thought he could hold his own against several soldiers... Fuck." Loopy activated his Sprint ability and flew towards a set of stairs. He ran up, skipping 3 steps at a time to save time. "Got to save Pilger, got to save Pilger." Loopy kept saying when suddenly he tripped over one of the stairs. "Holy shit," Loopy got back up as quickly as he could and activated his ability again. "I sure hope he's not dead..."

The soldier looked down at Pilger and gave him a look, "Y'know, I wanna see the look on your face as you die." The soldier tugged and pulled at Pilger's helmet until it came off. Pilger opened his eyes. "That's better, eh? I can see your face..." He pressed the barrel to Pilgers forehead. "Gute nacht, mein freund." He started squeezing the trigger.

Pilger squeezed his eyes closed tight, and suddenly there was a jolt as the soldier was heaved off of Pilger. He sat up quickly to see what happened.

A teal soldier had rammed the enemy and pinned him to the ground, he then got up and grabbed the soldier by the chest and thrust him at a wall. The teal soldier took out his knife and jabbed the other guy in the throat, he bled profusely. The teal guy checked for vitals, then but his knife back and walked over to Pilger. "You alright? Thought you were a gonner." He sniggered.

"Yeah, thanks. I owe you my life."

"You owe me nothing, I'm just a soldier like you and I saw you needed a little bit of help. Don't worry about it." The teal guy offered Pilger his hand, Pilger took it and stood up.

"Thanks anyways, I'm Pilgernator." He offered his hand to shake.

The teal guy gripped his hand and shook it, "Mr. Meep, Meepy for short." They broke contact.

"Well, my partner and I split up and I haven't been able to contact him for the past few minutes, I'm wondering if you know where he is?  
"No, I do not. But I heard you screaming out for him, Loopy if I heard you right. You should choose your channels more carefully, the enemy could have listened in on your conversations just as easy as I could- Ah, looks like theres your partner." Meepy pointed at the maroon figure closing in on their position.

Loopy came to a quick halt in front of Pilgernator, "You alright? I heard you yelling at me, I couldn't respond though, I heard some asshole on the channel." Loopy looked over at the teal soldier standing to his left. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm the asshole, and I wouldn't be so quick to call judgement, I very well just saved Pilger's life. Meepy" He stuck out his hand.

"Oh, sorry bout that. LoopyPaladin." He took Meepy's hand and shook it shortly then broke contact. "So, what's the plan?"

"We continue on and kill every living thing in this motherfucker." Said Pilger. "Then we call for evac."

"Alright, then let's get moving, there's alot more troops here that would love to spill our blood." Meepy noted.

They moved out as one, proceeding down the staircase together.

"So how many did you kill there, Loopy?" Asked Pilger.

"Um-" Loopy started counting on his fingers. "About twenty, give or take."

"Fucking serious? Shit, good job there." They all proceeded down the staircase. There were many soldiers in the hall ahead.

"You take the left, I'll take the right. Loopy, go down the middle and pick off soldiers with your sniper rifle." Pilger said. "Let's go."

They went down the hallway, shooting and slashing, blood was flying everywhere. Loopy stayed ack by the stairs and picked off stray soldiers in the hallway, more towards the back. A soldier came flying at Pilger but he was busy gutting a soldier that had attacked him. He was closing in on Pilger, when suddenly- BANG! The soldier jerked and hit the ground hard. Pilger looked back at Loopy and gave him a thumbs up. Loopy moved up a bit and took position bhind a small crate while Pilger and Meepy proceeded to kill up front. They picked off about 40 soldiers when they got to the end of the hall. They all regrouped and stood by the elevator.

"So, do we know what's down there?" Loopy asked.

"Not yet, we'll have to go down and see." Pilger said.

"Well, we know there's a gang boss down there... correct?" Meepy stated.

"Correct." Pilger and Loopy said in unison. They all nodded at each other and Meepy pressed the button to go down. The door opened, a soldier stood there and raised his gun.

"Oh fuck off!" Meepy yelled, he took out his knife, stabbed the guy in the throat and slammed him into the corner. He drew his knife out and sheathed it once more.

"Calm down dude, you could've just shot him..." Loopy said, looking down at the body and stepping into the elevator.

"Why waste ammunition? And plus, I spent all morning sharpening this baby, why put it to waste?"

Loopy nodded and the doors closed.

The elevator was taking it's sweet, sweet time going down. It had been almost 5 minutes when they got down to the bottom. The elevator emmited a 'clunk' sound and they all raised their guns. The door opened and heartbeats started racing. They looked out- empty room. All was empty except one man sitting on a sofa playing a Playstation 3.

They walked up and Pilger started talking, "Really? A Playstation? Fuck, you should've gotten an Xbox 360 man. It's 10 times cheaper and more people play online."

The man responded, "Fuck off you little shit, Playstation has more than the Xbox could ever dream! Free live, Blu-Ray, a wide range of exclusive games, and it looks sexy!"

Meepy walked up, "Dude, we may have to pay for live, but we have Halo. Fuck you if you don't agree that Halo is fucking awesome."

The man responded again, "We have MAG! The largest online multiplayer war game ever! Two-hundred-fifty-six people online at once! Beat that!"

Meepy went on again, "Again, we have Halo... Fuck off."

Loopy came up, "Dude, we have more of a fanbase than you will ever dream of having. And the Playstation Move? Bitch please. I don't want to swing around a glowing, metallic dildo in the air to play ping pong!"

The man was getting infuriated, "Fuck you little kids! you don't know shit!" He put down his controller and pulled out a pistol, "I'll show you who's-"Bang! The man fell back into his couch, a steaming hole in his forehead. Pilger and Meepy looked over at Loopy, pistol in hand.

"What? He was pissing me off! And he had a gun, I felt my life was in danger so I was allowed to kill him." He shrugged it off and headed back to the elevator. "Come on guys! We just killed the executive, the remaining whores in this building won't be able to go on without their 'fearless' leader!"

Pilger and Meepy went into the elevator with Loopy, "You're fucked up, you know that right?" Pilger said.

"Absolutely." Responded Loopy, a grin under his helmet.

They endured the long ride up and left the base and called for evac when they thought they were far enough away to be safe.

"So Meepy, you staying at our place? We can build you in a room."

"Yeah, might as well. My base got fucked up in a covenant glassing."

They exchanged stories of war for a few minutes until a falcon arrived. They flew off to base and began renovating the place. They shared laughs all night and they fell asleep in front of the television.

Meepy, another one added to the crew. Nor Pilger nor Loopy knew where he came from, or what base he orignated from, but all they know now is that Loopy is now outnumbered, 2 blues to 1 red.

* * *

CHAPTER 5

It was early morning, the sun had just passed the horizon and Pilger was walking around the base awaiting an interesting event. "Meepy! Where the hell is Loopy?" He inquired.

"Uh, I think he's still asleep. He should be in his bedroom." Meepy shouted from the bathroom.

"Okay, well, come out here! I have an idea!"

"Fuck. Now? I'm getting ready!"

"Fuck off, get out here."

"Ugh, I'll be out in a minute." A series of clanking and clacking erupted from the bathroom, "SHIT!" Meepy had dropped hsi things on the floor, he collected them up and turned the sink on. He cupped his hands and collected water from the tap and splashed his face and looked up in the mirror. "It's been a while since I've seen my own face..." He said to himself, "This fucking helmet's been on for so long." He looked for a few more seconds, then grabbed at the towel that was hanging so neatly on the towel rack. "Hey, Pilger?"

"Yeah?"

"Why the hell is everything so neat in this place? It's so... symmetrical." Meepy looked around the bathroom.

"Yeah, it's to keep Loopy from offing himself during the night."

"Why? What's wrong with him?"

"Ugh, Come out here and I'll tell you."

"K, one sec." Meepy dried his face and walked out to the TV set. "So, what's wrong?"

"Well, Loopy has an OCD of sorts. He hates things being asymmetrical, he says. I was indeed reluctant but during the first night I let him stay in here, he insisted that he cleaned up the place and made everything all nice, neat, and symmetrical. Of course, I don't clean here much so I thought I'd let him while I built an attachment on that was going to be his room. So I can out when I was finished and Loopy was sitting on the floor eating some leftover pizza, surveying the room to see if he missed anything. I was amazing anyways when I first looked out at it, so I went to the bathroom to wash my hand and there it was, everyhting was orginized to his liking and so I had to yell at him a bit for touching my shit."

"Fuck, what a kid."

"Tell me about it, eh? So back to what I wanted you out here for. If Loopy is sleeping, we can wake him up."  
"You needed me out here to tell me THAT? Fuck this-"

"No, that's not all. Were gunna fuck with his OCD. We'll put things out of order in his room so that when we wake him up, he'll have a freak out. I wanna test this OCD, to see how bad it really is."

"Sounds interesting, how do we start?"

"Well, let's go to his room."

They made their way to Loopy's room, it was just off of the kitchen so that he had easy access when he wanted a midnight snack. The opened the door as quietly as they could, and tip-toed into his room.

"Holy sh-" Meepy started, but stopped when he looked around Loopy's room.

The room was now painted a solid color of maroon with a black carpet floor. His bed was perfectly in line with the centre of the room, as if he measured it just right or something, black poofy blankets perfectly wrapped around him as if he hadn't moved all during the night. At each side of the bed, there were make-shift bedside tables with lamps on them, perfectly alligned; and on the left side of his bed, right in the corner, there was a stand holding up his armor. The armor looked brand new, as if Loopy had cleaned it and got rid of the scuff marks from the previous days work. And on the right was a laundry hamper full of clothes, and across from the hamper in the right corner there was his dresser; a small wodden box with 2 drawers to keep his under armor in and whatever spare clothes he had. And in the other left corner, he had a chair. The room wasn't very symmetrical in a sense, but it's as good as one could get with the stuff Loopy had.

"Let's fuck it up?" Meepy said.

"Yes, but be quiet about it, I don't want to wake him up just yet."

They crept around the room very quietly. Meepy went over to the laundry hamper and took out the clothes from it and he spread them out on the floor. Pilger was busy taking different parts from Loopy's armor and putting them in completely random places throughout the room. They both went over to each night stand afterwards and unplugged the lamps and put them on the floor either upside down or on it's side. They continued to screw up the room until they thought it was done and they exited. Meepy started to make food while Pilger took place in his recliner, "Oh Loopy!" Pilger called, "Time to wake up you little bastard!" Him and Meepy chuckled. They heard the slight squeaking of Loopy's bed, and then silence. They waited a minute for Loopy's reaction.

Loopy looked around his room, the place was a fucking mess. "How- how did this- What the fuck happ-" He couldn't finish a sentence. He got up slowly, trying to divert his attention from his terrible room, and grabbed his pistol and a grenade. He walked slowly out of the room.

"Loopy, what's the matter? Did someone mess up your room?" Pilger said.

Loopy walked out of his room, pajamas and all, with a pistol in one hand, and a grenade in the other. "I would like you two to tell me what the fuck happened to my room?" His voice deepened.

"No idea! you could have waslked in your sleep." Meepy said.

"Do not give me that bullshit Meepy. I know one of you knows, now either fess up," Loopy pointed the gun at Meepy, who was at the stove, and pulled the ring off of the grenade and held it out towards Pilger. "Or you can talk to me in hell. Your choice." He looked at either of them menacingly.

"Loopy, calm down. We don't need any drama in this house." Pigler said in an attempt to calm Loopy.

"Fuck off, who fucked up my room?"  
"We don't know!" Meepy went on.

Loopy made sure the gun was loaded, "Tell me, I'm prepared to live alone."

"Loopy put the gun down!" Pilger insisted.

"Tell me now. Or I will shoot you to shit, and blow your ass to kingdom come!"

"Loopy-!"

"NOW!" He shot a warning round at Meepy's feet. "COME ON!"

"Loopy! We did it! It was just a joke, to see how far you would freak out!" Pilger said.

"Fuck you two." He threw the grenade out the window and shot at the wall. "Fuck you." He went back to his room to clean up.

"Pilger, I say we never try that again. I don't like him when he's angry!" Meepy whisper shouted to Pilger.

"Yeh, I know. Should we apologise?"  
"Yeah, probably. Loopy! We're deeply sorry! We'll never do anything like that again!"  
"Your mother is a whore! Both of you! Fuck off!"

Pilger sat back in his recliner and Meepy went back to cooking food.

"Well, that went well." Meepy said.

"Fuck yeah, now that I know my mother is a whore."

"And you know it!" Loopy shouted from his room, "Bow chika bow wow!"

"FUCK OFF! THAT'S MY LINE!" Meepy shouted.

"And what a wonderful start to a good, healthy relationship with the 3 of us!" Pilger said enthusiasticly, but sarcastic in every mean of the word.

* * *

CHAPTER 6

It's been 2 months; 2 months since we found Meepy at that base and when me and Loopy had our first real mission together. The day when I almost died and we killed that bastard of an executive. We haven't done much in this place since that day, we haven't gotten any calls from base that are too important, we haven't been on too many missions; we've just been hanging around the base for the most part. Loopy is still pissed off at us for messing with his room, he's been sulking about the base or going on walks around the canyon; and Meepy has been cooking food for us, polishing his armor, or sharpening his knife and using bottles and cans for target practise. Me? I've been sitting up here on this roof for most of my days, looking at the canyon or at the patch of messed up dirt from the first night Loopy got here. Alot of good things have happened here; but there's still something missing, something big, like something is supposed to come and hit us in the face and kick our asses. Or maybe we'll meet more people along the way, I don't know, but whatever it is, I'll accept it with an open mind and an assault rifle to the face.

Pilger leaned back and looked out into the distance, closed his eyes, and drifted into a light sleep, listening to the small noises coming from the base.

The noise of a red alarm sounded from the the com room, Pilger heard Loopy and Meepy running around the base frantically. Pilger jumped down and ran inside, "What's going on?" He asked.

"Red alert-" Loopy started;

"-covenant dropships-"

"-invading earth-"

"-we need to stop them-"

They were finishing each other's words s the popped in and out of their rooms coming out with handfuls and wepaonry and ammo. Pilger ran into his room and started to gather everything he needed. "When's the pelican coming to get us?" Pilger said in a painful rush.

"It's coming soon, we need to get everything outside before it comes, we have no time to waste." Loopy said and he popped back into his room.

"We're going to be taken to the Intelligence agency, they say they have a series of teleporters set up on Earth and we need to go into seperate ones to thin out the army." Meepy continued before he popped back into his room.

"Thin out- What the hell?" Pilger stopped where he was, "Stop you guys, we need to talk about this." Loopy and Meepy stopped what they were doing and looked at Pilger.  
"No time dude, we need to get there to provide assistance for the Military forces back on Earth." Loopy said sourly.

"But, are we just being used as expendables? This is bullshit!"

"Yeah," Meepy took off his helmet and scratched his head, "I know.." He looked somber.

"Loopy sighed, "It's part of our duty though right? We signed up for this knowing we could die any minute, and it looks like that moment is approaching. . ." Loopy took off his helmet and started choking up. "We know were going to die, Pilger, but it's for Earth, for mankind."

"But, how many other Spartans are there on Earth right now?"

"Not enough," Muttered Meepy, "They're dying as we speak. And we need to get going." Meepy picked up his things and walked out the door and sat down beside them, running his fingers through his hair.

"It's gotta be done, Pilger. Come on, we gotta go." Loopy picked up his stuff as well and joined Meepy outside.

Pilger swore under his breath and got his stuff. He met Loopy and Meepy outside the door, Loopy was now sobbing quietly. He put his stuff beside Loopy's and geared up. A few minutes later Pilger joined Meepy and Loopy on the ground.  
"This is suicide you know?" Pilger commented.

"Yeah." Meepy replied.

Loopy sat up straight and put his helmet on, "This is what we were made for. Were just here to be killed and take a few down along with us. It's not a beautiful duty, but someone's gotta do it, right?" Loopy sighed, "It's why we're here." He picked up a flower from beside him and gazed at it for a was an unbearable silence.

"So, are we being seperated?" Pilger asked.

"Yeah, completely different parts of the Earth as far as we know. They don't want to draw too much attention to one area so they're limiting the amount of noticably stronger units in one area. It may not sound logical to you, but it's what we're instructed to do, and we will follow orders through." Meepy replied, getting quieter as he spoke.

"Well, it was good knowing you guys. We had a grand time together, eh? And Meepy, I really wish I could have made it up to you in some way."

"Made what up?"  
"You know, 2 months ago when you saved my life."  
"Naw, it's fine dude. Don't worry about it."

They sat in silence. Loopy got up and went looking for something, and came back with a stick. "Hey, Meepy? Can I use your knife? It'll only take a sec."

"Sure, it's all yours." He handed Loopy the knife. Loopy started carving 3 downward slots in 3 different directions. He finished, handed Meepy back his knife, and jammed the stick in the ground. He ripped off his dog tags and hung them on one of the slots. Meepy followed soon after and Pilger did shortly after Meepy.

"This is a monument... To show that we were here. And is anyone comes here, they will know of our presence." Loopy said, looking up at the sky.

"Indeed..." Pilger said.

They waited for another 5 minutes for the pelican. They loaded their stuff in and they got in the seats. They lifted off and started for imminent death.

The time passed so slowly, as if they were marhing into hell. It seemed like eternity and it didn't help one bit that no one talked during the entire ride there. It took a good 2 hours to get to the agency before they got off and went in the front doors. They took what ammunition they could carry and all the grenades they could get their hands on. They walked in the front doors and headed for the teleportation modules. They stopped at the doors.

"It was nice knowing you guys," Pilger stuck out his hand and they all shook hands. They nodded and went into the room.

"Ah! Good to see you, good sirs." The officer said, standing in front of 4 different teleportation stations. "Now as you can see, there are 4 teleporters, and we will only be using 3. You will each step into different telelporters and will end up in locations scattered across Earth, and if you don't know, you will be almost alone out there. There will be nothing more than a small army of marines, but nothing near enough to take out the covenant there." He sighed, "There is nothing we can do but send in a nuke to wipe out the armada, but what good would that do? That's exactly the opposite of what we want to do. We want Earth in one piece and we do NOT want to have to use nuclear wepaons to deal with it. Now you know your jobs and I expect you to get to them. This is why you're here, this is why you made the choice you did when you signed up for this whole bit, and this is what you will live and die for. Now go, all three of you stand in front to different teleporters and do not try to jump into your buddy's teleporter."  
LoopyPaladin, Mr. Meep, and Pilgernator, all lined up in front of different teleporters. The looked at each other and nodded. Loopy pulled out his Assault Rifle, Meepy pulled out a pistol and his knife, and Pilgernator pulled out his Designated Marksman Rifle.

"Go!" The officer behind them screamed.

They leapt into the teleporters, into Hell.

* * *

CHAPTER 7

Loopy came out into a city scene. Tall skyscrapers and burning buildings surrounded the area, the Covenant weren't as abundant as foretold.

I came out into the open area off to the side, I looked through the sights of my binoculars. There was a lone Marine fighting an Elite off about 150 feet away, he wasn't going to win. The elite slashed through the air and the Marine dodged swiftly as he shot at the elite with his assault rifle. Just when I thought the Marine was going to lose, the Elite's shields when offline and it threw down its plasma rifle and roared; the marine continued to backpeddle towards a broken, burning fountain and didn't cease fire. The elite was bleeding profusly from it's abdomen when the marine ran out of ammo, he took the clip out and paniced when he didn't find any more rounds in his pack, he was in trouble.

"Oh shit, I can't just let him die." I threw down my specs and took out my pistol, I went down on one knee and aimed down the sights, pulled the trigger and watched blood fly out of the back of the elite's neck as it fell over onto the marine. I took out my assault rifle again and ran twords the marine who just had a dead elite fall on top of him. I got over to the location, "Are you okay, marine?"

"A Spartan? I didn't know there were any left." He looked at my armor, "Nice colors."

"Thanks... What do you mean you didn't know there were any more spartans?"

"Well, we had a spartan show up here and there to provide assistance for a while, but they all died trying to kill the covenant."

"Oh, thanks. Well, we just had three spartans sent out, me being one of them." I looked around at the falling buildings and ship-scattered skies. "Are you the only one left in this area?"

"Yes, sir, I am the only one here. My comrades all died."  
"Well, you will be travelling with me then." I reached into my bag and pulled out a couple assault rifle clips, "Try not to waste these ones, eh?"

"Thank you, sir!" He chuckled.

"No problem." I surveyed the landscape, "Where to? Where are they?"

"Well, that's the problem, sir. I don't know where they went. My squad picked the covenant in a couple areas before they got killed by the snipers. And I'm the only one left. The only thing I've run into since my squad died is that elite there and a couple of grunts."

"Alright, then left go that way." I pointed over twards where the dropships were going down.

". . .Sir, no offense, but, are you shitting me?"

"No bullshit here. I'm prepared to die for this planet, and I will do anything to protect it, and so far all we need to do is take care of as many covenant as we can before we die."

"Die? Sir, I don't want to die."

"Well, that's what you signed up for, isn't it?" I started walking towards the drop zone.  
"Yes, but, I didn't think I would actually die!" He had no choice but to follow the spartan.

We had only been walking for a few minutes, but it felt like hours on this dead planet. There was no calm chatter of people in the streets, there was only the sound of gunshots and bombs going off on the Earth's surface. The world was in dissaray, I'm not even sure where they took all of the civilians, we weren't informed of anything beyond what we were instructed to do earlier today. Most of the men were probably instructed to be in the military and fight these split-jawed bastards. I know nothing more than what I was told, and this bugs me, I want to know what's happening everywhere else, and more importantly, I want to know how Meepy and Pilgernator are holding up. They're probably knee deep in covenant bodies by now, unlike me, just trudging around this dead shit-hole that we used to call home.

"So, were there any other troops sent with you? Or is it just one spartan sent to destroy everything?"

"Well, there were three of us, like I said. But we were all put into spereate parts of the Earth, maybe we all ended up in the same country... Who knows? I don't know anything that's going on anymore. All I know is that I need to kill some fuckers and get home."

"Home? This is home, this is what we're fighting for, a home."

I had to think about this for a second, and it was all true. We were fighting for a home, not just for us, but for Earth and all it's inhabitants. "True, but I meant base. I haven't been home in months..."

There wasn't anything said too much after this, the marine was quiet, he didn't seem to have an answer and I didn't have anything to talk about. We had been walking for 10 or 15 minutes now, we were approaching where we neded to be. I could see a coenant base up ahead, they had set up alot for the 15 minutes that they had dropped down. I didn't have any too long range equipment with me, but I looked over at a pile of marines over to the left side of the road, behind a pile of sandbags. The marine started to gag.

"T-those are me teammates... They piled them up and made a display out of them. E-excuse me" He went over to some hedges and started to vomit.

I went over to the pile and picked up a Sniper Rifle, good timing. We could easily se the base from here if we got on top of a ledge of some sort. I spotted a balcony of an abandoned apartment building and hopped up to grab it, I managed to get a hold of the ledge and pulled myself up over the railing. The marine looked up at me quizically;

"How'd you get up there?"

"It doesn't matter. Here, grab my hand, I'll pull you up." I stuck out my hand over the railing to meet his. He jumped up and just barely grabbed on and I heaved him up. I grabbed the sniper rifle and looked through the sights at the enemies. "You know, I've never been good at long range combat..." I lined up a headshot of an elied general I caught takeing off his helmet to get the hot air out of it. "Spot me." I said, lining up the shot, the marine coming up beside me, grabbing a pair of bincoluars and looking down them;

"You're ready to fire when ready."

I took a deep breathe in, and squeezed the trigger. A loud crack rang through the air as the general's head jerked back flailing blood everywhere as he fell over.

"Oh shit, they're everywhere now. They know where we are... Oh shit... They're coming this way!"

"Oh fuck, you take sniping position up here while I go down there and take out as many as I can."

"Got it, spartan. Good luck to you out there."  
"Thanks, I'll need it." I ran full on at the elites rushing at me, dodging bullets as i went and pumping them at them just as fast as they came at me. Overpowered, I leapt behind a small cover and tossed a grenade up to slow them down as they came. It was useless though, as I was hiding their shields were recharging and I was getting more and more screwed. I looked up at the marine manning the sniper rifle, he was shooting at them but I couldn't tell if he was hitting or not; it was difficult to see from my angle. I looked around for munitions and I found 2 frag grenades, I combined them with 3 that I already had and threw them all at once. The moment I heard a small clink behind me I heard the voices of elites screaming;

Boom. When I heard the explosion I saw this as an opportunity. I leapt up from behind cover and shipped out my pistol, shooting at the elites that were now stunned by the frags thrown just seconds earlier.

Pitol clip is gone- not enough time to reload. I whipped my assault rifle from my back and started firing and half strifing to the side but moving up as I went. To my surprise they went down, all except one who managed to keep his life on account of his shields- assault rifle is empty. I threw it down to my left and took out my knife, I adjusted it in my hands and ran at the elite head on. We both screamed as we ran at each other.

Two scenarios were possible; One, I die in this mad attempt and the marine covering me takes out the un-shielded elite and cleans up the rest of the covenant base. The second option, I win and there's a chance I can go back to base and keep Pilger and Meepy company, assuming they're having as much luck as me.

We were closing in, 20 feet- he's taking out his energy sword. 15 feet- he's got it almost ready. 10 feet- There's no way I can win. 5 feet- I jump. 0 feet. We hit each other, not sure who hit who, and I tumbled off of his right side, and he of mine. We layed there limp, both of us, I wasn't sure what had happened. Was I alive? did he hit me? did I hit him? There was silence. I rolled my head over to where the elite lay, he had my knife sitcking out of his neck, and so that means I won? I looked down at my blood spattered chest. There was an energy sword sticking out of my ribcage. Everything was going black. I had a good run, eh, Pilger? Everything is good, I did my part. Darkness was closing in on my eyes. A muffled voice came out of the distance.

"Spartan!" I was slipping in and out of conciousness now, "Spartan!" The voice was now beside me. ". . . you alright? Come on! Live goddamnit! . . . my only hope on this planet, gone! Come on, please live! . . ." I slipped into conciousness now to a dull almost numb pain in my ribs, the marine had just deacivated the energy sword and threw it aside. "Let's hope this works!" The soldier was taking off my chest piece, he had a med-kit with him. He got my chest piece off, I looked down at my chest through the corners of my eyes. There was a massive gap there there should be skin and bone. The soldier started applied medication and I drifted out of conciousness once more.

* * *

CHAPTER 8

"Meepy calling control. . . Fuckers, left me off the line. Oh well." Looks like the only person I can talk to now is myself? Fun. It's dead out here. The teleporter lead me to a vast jungle, nothing here. I don't even see why there should be a teleporter out here, I mean, there's no sport! There's no elites trying to rip my arm off and beat me with the wet end of it. Oh well, walk on I shall.

"Meepy calling control. . . Goddamnit." It's been roughly 15 minutes since my last transmission attempt to control, I've been walking though this shit and it's getting swampy now. Theres trees everywhere, very low light the deeper I go and the deeper I go there seems to be more swamp. Darkness and swamp, not good conditions. Oh wait, theres lights up there! I think there may be some other forms of life up there, my motion radar certainly tells me so. And judging by the dull color of white used for the lights I'm going to assume it's humans, either humans or elites that just had some marines for lunch. I'm getting closer and closer to being able to talk to someone, let's try command again;

"C'mon you bastards, this is Mr. Meep calling, would you pick up your goddamn phone?" Theres lights everywhere now, shining in every direction, looks like they were really trying to see something. Meepy put his hands in fron of his face to cover up the light coming his direction.

"Sirs! I've been walking forever! Thank god I found you! . . .Sirs?"

Theres something wron with this, there's no reply, at least not in a commutable language. And there were lumpy things all around... Oh shit.

Meepy started to turn the other way and run but they had already noticed him. They gurgled and screamed and chased after Meepy through the jungle.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, oh shit." Meepy tore through the jungle as rapidly as he could, twisting through trees and jumping over rocks and logs. Meepy could see the treeline appearing on the horizon.

"Run, run, run," Was all that was on Meepy's mind, the monsters were chasing after him and he didn't want to suffer the same fate as many others. "Run and you'll be fine, Meepy, just run!" The treeline was getting closer.

The gurlging and screeching continued in the background, it seemed to be getting closer to Meepy's location. But the treeline was ever closer, only about 20 feet.  
Evercloser, Meepy gave himself a mental boost and burst for the treeline. With a final push, he broke through, only to find his immenent death so it seems.

Meepy had ended up jumping off a cliff, a very high one at that, and he was now in freefall. Falling now there was a visible bottom, a grassy hill on the outskirts of a massive city with several carriers and drop ships surrounding it, the final city to conquer it seems. The bottom of the cliff was near now and he would hit it within 10 seconds, but he already had a plan.

"If I use my ability, I can survive this barely, but I could survive it. Okay, brace for impact in 5, 4, 3, 2. . ." Meepy hit the ground in a plume of dust and earth. The dust had cleared away the the ground has nearly settled.

Meepy was in something of the fetal position, locked in place by his armor. He immediatly unlocked his armor and let his limbs fall to the ground. Meepy got up and surveyed his surroundings, and decided to pick himself up and go to the city. There was plenty going on there, so it looked and that's where he felt he needed to go.

* * *

CHAPTER 9

Pilger panted as he ran through an abandoned farmyard, it reeked of animals and hay. He heard the sound of a focus rifle starting from his right, he looked over and there was a jackal sitting up on a red barn that was half destroyed by the covenant, burning all of the inhabitants inside it. Pilger jumped forward and rolled on the ground, activating his camo as he landed. He strafed towards a corn maze to his left and looked through his scope at the Jackal, it was looking around aimlessely, looking for the enemy. Pilger stopped and went down on one knee, took in a deep breathe, and fired the rifle. Blood sprayed out the back of the jackal's head and went onto what was left of a roof, Pilger looked towards the corn maze and strafed towards it once again. He approached the maze and turned off his camo, and went into the maze.

I can't do this alone, there were no reinforcements when i arrived, and there was a dopr ship right above me when i came through. I can't contact command and the teleporter was shut down the moment I stepped through the damn thing.

Pilger looked back where he entered the maze, there were several dead bodies, covenant and human.

What the hell did we do to deserve this? This is madness...

Pilger reached onto his back and replaced his sniper rifle with a DMR; he turned a corner, looking down his sights. Nothing there.

It's getting dark out, there isn't much activity in this area besides the occasional banshee or falcon flying over head. There's been the odd time when a falcon has been shot out of the sky and killed a few people, or crashed into a building or something of the sort. Another corner; nothing. There's nothing here, why the hell am I so sketchy? If there was going to be trouble, I'm pretty sure I'd hear something like an elite chatting about his last meal, or how Loopy tea bagged his brother...

Pilger chuckled and remembered what happened at the base earlier today, how we left our dog tags on that stick... Pilger reached for his neck, feeling for what wasn't there. He sighed; another corner, nothing again.

"Why the fuck do I even bother?" Pilger threw his arms up in the air and screamed, "If you're there then why the fuck don't you just take me? Come on! Shoot me in the fucking head! Come on you split-jawed bastards!" Pilger spun around endlessely, spraying bullets into the open air and tossing grenades randomly. Pilger started screaming again, "Where the fuck are you-"

A hand clasped his visor and a sharp tip pressed against his back. Pilger looked at the hand, an elite's, and judging by the tip, there was an energy sword at his back. The tip was pressing into his back, he needed to think quickly. Pilger grabbed the elite's shoulder and kicked his right leg up and flipped up halfway, then kicked his left leg up to get more momentum, he was now almost straight up but he needed a little bit more momentum to get him up, he put his legs together and kicked both of them back. He was now flipping over the elite, he was clad in gold armor carrying an energy sword with a plasma repeater on his back.

Pilger swung around and kicked the elite in the lower back and jumped off, when he landed he switched on his camo and walked slowly at the elite who was recovering from being knocked over. Pilger reached for his knife slowly and stood in place. The elite looked around angrily and swung his sword around, stabbing and waving it around in hopes of coming close to Pilger and activating his shields. Pilger stepped back a bit, looking on the ground for his DMR, it was on the ground behind the elite and he couldn't step through. The gap between either of the elite's sides and the corn stalks was no more than half a meter on each side, but he was swinging so furiously it closed the gap tremendously. Pilger sat and waited, he checked his ability status, only 10 seconds or so until the next cooldown.

The elite was now slowing down because of fatigue, and Pilger saw an opening between slashing. 5 seconds until deactivation. Pilger took his knife and lifted it in the air and threw it towards the corn row opposite him to make a distraction. The elite looked over at the disturbance and Pilger went for the opening as his camo wore off. When it was too late, the elite looked over and saw Pilger running, Pilger slid on the ground to the left of the elite and grabbed his DMR. He fired a couple rounds a the elite's neck as it spun around, it's shields flared. Pilger threw the DMR up in the air and jumped at the elite and tackled it to the ground, the sword flew to the left and sat on the ground.

Pilger went into a punchout with the elite. Pilger threw his right fist into the elite's neck, followed by his left into the right side of the elite's face; it's helmet knocked loose. Pilger raised his fist to throw another into the right side of it's face when the elite's foot came up and kicked Pilger over and rolled to the left and grabbed his sword. Pilger made a struggle to crawl backwards and get up at the same time, he managed to get up before the elite did and so he strafed backwards and the elite walked towards him. Pilger reached for something on his back and sides, all he had was a sniper rifle and some extra bullets, his DMR was on the ground behind the elite again. He stood still and the elite did the same. Pilger looked at his status, his camo was good. He activated it at once and stood still. The elite stayed where he was, still hoding his sword the way he always had. Pilger got down on his knees and started crawling twards the elite, slowly. He had no idea what he was going to do when he got up to the elite or his camo ran out, but he had a good 20 seconds before he had to panic.

Pilger crawled furthermore at the elite, he was about 3 meters away from it. He kept going, 15 seconds and 2.5 meters.

10 seconds and 2 meters, he started moving quicker.

5 seconds and only 1 meter to go.

2 seconds, closing in on half a meter.

The last second, Pilger leapt up and twisted the elite's sword hand. A terrible cracking noise emitted from within his armor and he let out a shrill cry and dropped the energy sword. Pilger shoved out his foot and kicked the elite hard in the stomache, reached out in the air with his right hand, twisted around and grabbed the energy sword. When he has it in his grasp, he spun around on his left foot and kicked away. Pilger twisted in mid air so he landed facing the elite, he came down with a thump, dust spurt from under his feet. He was now on his feet, bent down when one arm out behind him brandishing the sword, the other on the ground keeping himself from falling over. The elite was grabbing his arm and his stomache, glaring at Pilger.

Pilger rushed at the elite head on, the energy sword trailing behind him. The elite let go of his arm and stomache and ran at Pilger, screaming. They were closing in and Pilger jumped up in the air towards the elite and did a flip over the it. Pilger spun around and stabbed the sword through the elite's back. The elite went silent, and so did the night. Pilger switched off the energy sword and watched the elite's body go limp and fall to the ground.

"No good piece of shit." He kicked the body.

He turned around and picked up his DMR and walked out of the maze. He walked around the barnyard, the barn had now burned down completely, and there was another tree knocked over because of a dog fight. Pilger walked up the driveway and looked at a black, blood spattered jeep.

There's nothing more I can do here, doesn't seem like there's too much more activity in this area. Off to the next, I guess. Pilger thought to himself. He walked over to the jeep, the keys still in ignition and sat down in the drivers seat, he felt at his sheath, he had left his knife in the corn maze. He started to get out of the jeep;

"Fuck it, I'll find another one." He sat back down and turned the keys.

Vroom, the car started up and the lights turned on. He pressed down the gas pedal and went off onto the country road, not knowing where it was going to take him. He looked back at the barn, and down to the seat next to him, there was a grenade. He stopped the vehicle momentarily and chucked the grenade at the house. It broke the window and exploded at a corner and finished off the old wood building. He pressed down the pedal again and continued on, to finish this fight or die trying.

* * *

CHAPTER 10

Loopy lay in a puddle of his own blood while the marine attempted to patch up his wound. Loopy didn't complain whenever the marine poked or prodded him with needles or put bandages around sensitive or burnt areas. He didn't make a noise throughout the entire procedure, as far as he knew anyways. Loopy was unconcious for most of it, but for what he was awake of it, he would either gain a short burst of adrenaline, or feel like dying, which was his current state. He hadn't spoken to the marine for what seemed like ages, although he didn't look much like one for conversation either. Loopy gathered what was left of his remaining strength;

"Why don't you just let me die like everyone else?"

"Sorry, sir... What? I couldn't let you die like the others! You have no idea how fucked I would be if you didn't find me!" The marine grunted as he pulled some bandage tighter around Loopy's ribcage. "I couldnt've made it this far without you. I would be dead in that old fountain back there if you hadn't showed up! Hell, I'd be in an elite's bowel system by now."

"You know that elites don't actually eat humans, that's just a story they tell you in training... to scare you." Loopy grunted, another spurt of blood rushed out of his chest. "Fucking hell... This hurts like a bitch."

"Yeah, you didn't seem much for conversation earlier, the most I got out of you was the occasional grunt or moan when I would tighten the bandages or poke you with needles."

"Not one for conversation," Loopy chuckled shortly, the pain was too much to laugh. "I want you to let me stab you with that sword over there, and see if you feel like telling me about breakfast this morning."

"Huh, do I get to clean the thing before you stab me?" They both shared a laugh, but it ended abruptly when blood started seeping through the bandage. "Fuck, how long do you think you'll last?"

"Not long enough to see tomorrow. I wasn't supposed to live through today."

"Not supposed to? What kind of shit military do we have? We should overthrow them, create our own military!"

"Not so loud, eh?" Loopy tapped his helmet, "They could be watching us. They've got cams wired through all of our helmets, for research purposes I suppose."

"Right, sir! I forgot... Basic training." He shot another round of antibiotic into Loopy's forearm, which he discvered was now free of armor; the marine must've taken it off to give injections.

"How much longer til' I can hit the road running?"

"Well, You're almost done, but I wouldn't over exert yourself, you'll bleed to death within minutes; you've already lost half of your blood there."  
"Well, shit. There a jeep around here?"

"Yeah, I did some scouting while I was waiting for the antibiotic to kick in, and I found one about a kilometer north-northwest of this location. It's been beat up a little bit, and there's a dead guy in the passenger seat, but I managed to heave him off and get some ammo."

"And why didn't you drive it back?"

"I didn't want to leave too many traces for the covenant to find us if this took longer than I hoped."

"Smart kid. Have you been able to get a hold of Comm? They've been blocking us out ever since we got here."

"No, sir, I haven't. I've tried a couple times but no luck. It seems they've left us here to die. They've already gotten 90 percent of the population to Reach. They're colonizing there."

"No shit? I thought Reach would've been dead by now. And I thought it was the Spartan training grounds?"

"It was, but they've found new means for it." The marine was tieing up the loose ends now. "I guess the spartans have company now, eh?"

"No shit."

"Okay, well you should be good for another couple days if you don't do anything strenuous. I've mixed and matched some antibiotics together and I've created what I think is a healing agent of different sorts. So the dead tissue will completely fall away and where there was no skin, the skin should grow back quicker than normal; at an extremely accelerated rate. So, if this works then you should be fixed within the next week; being able to do things at almost normal in about 3 days. But if this fails, then I fear you will grow amutation similar to the flood, but with your own free will. The downside to this, is that the mutation may not stop and you will produce some offspring off of the fallen DNA that comes off, but they too will have a mind of their own. The upside, you will be stronger than ever; but again, you will be killed by the rest of the military, no one would accept that you have not been infected. Sorry."

"It's fine... but... near infected... that sucks!" Loopy got up to his knees, he could feel his insides moving. He got up to his feet. "Holy shit, it feels good to move around, eh?" He kicked his legs around and warmed up his limbs. "So are we gunna get going or what?" Loopy smiled under his helmet.

"Yeah! I'm surprised you're up so quick. You sure you're okay to walk?"

"Fuck yeah, let's go, eh? But you lead the way, that fuck over there killed my ability and fried some of my systems. Oh, by the way," Loopy looked over at his armor of the ground, "Can I put that back on?"

"Sadly, you will be more vulnerable, but we can't risk the sweat or bacteria from your suit to get on the infected area somehow or get into your blood by way of the needle hole. Sorry."

"Tis' alright, this looks cooler anyways."

Loopy now had a maroon helmet, shoulder pads, a full left arm, right upper arm and hand armor. From the shoulders below, he had a bandaged torso, seeping and crusted with blood, and full leg armor.

"You do look rather badass don't you?" They started walking towards the area of the jeep.

"Yeah, thanks for noticing. So, how far away did you say this was?" They walked on through the damaged city, burning buildings, smoke and smog covered the skies.

It hurt to walk, but hell, anything's better than being dead or a parapalegic... Somehow the blade missed my spinal column completely and went through the openeing in my ribs, avoiding too much damage to major organs, with minimal damage to the lungs. Thank God for marines with medical skill.

* * *

CHAPTER 11

Meepy walked across what used to be a series of condos, blown out by banshee fire. Meepy trudged across the rubble towards the city of unknown. He looked back over the cliff;

"Bastards, trying to infect me..." He looked back at the city, "Hopefully things aren't as eventful here as they were up there... Maybe theres a french fry stand, I could get myself a large with coke. Yeah," A smile ran across Meepy's face at the thought of food, "I haven't eaten since this morning, it's now 7:33pm. Shit..." Now that Meepy had the thought of food on his mind, his stomache started to growl and grumble. "Shut up." Meepy whacked his stomache playfully.

The city was in running distance now, even though he had chosen armor lock instead of sprint, but still in running distance; it was no longer than half a kilometer away.

"Let's get to it then." Meepy put his gun on his back and started to run.

Directly in front of Meepy was a large office buidling, the top right corner half blown out by a banshee Meepy guessed, but it was easily climbable, a good look over the city. That spot could draw the attention of a couple unwanted visitors. The building was now very close, Meepy scanned the ground. There was a Jetpack ability on the ground about 10 feet away from the base of the building, Meepy approached it and swapped out accordingly. He looked up at the building, pacing back a little ways.

"It's a bit bigger than what I expected, but I think I can make it." He took a running start and jumped into the air, followed by a burst of the jetpack. He got up a quarter of the way before he was alarmed, telling him that the feul was about to shut down for a short time. Meepy rushed forward and turned off the ability, he grabbed onto one of the window panes and rested his feet on the one below that. He waited for a small beep telling him that he could again use his jetpacks.

Soon enough the beep came and Meepy jumped off and up from the building and jetpacked up to the halfway point. He continued this procedure until he got to the top, where he experienced some difficulties. The jetpack had let out and wouldn't work for him, even after the beep. Meepy cursed at the jetpack. The blown off part wasn't too far away and Meepy could see that a couple wires were hanging down so that he could get up there easily. He started srafing over to the corner.

Meepy got over to the ledge carefully and got around the corner halfway so he could jump and grab the wires. He positioned himself to that he coule jump and have no chance of missing them. There were 3 wires, one hanging right in front of him, one to his immediate right and one to the left more towards the other wire.

The one in the middle seems more practical, if I start to fall I could grab onto the one to the left if I needed to, Meepy thought. Alright, better now then ever.

Meepy positioned himself so he faced the wires in a stable stance, he lifted his hands off of the wall and jumped. He landed right on the middle wire half way up it. He hung there for a second and started climbing, one arm in front of the other.

"Goddamn this; this is getting too difficult-" Meepy grunted as he climbed, "-Too difficult for a soldier like me, I haven't had to do this shit since-" He grunted again, "-Ugh, since training all those years ago. Ah, theres the top."

Meepy reached the top of the wire and realised how unstable this could have been if he put too much more force unto it. Meepy lifted his hands up and placed them onto the roof and began to pull himself up. "Aargh, this- is- bull-shit!" Meepy saw a pair of feet standing by his hands, and judging by the lack of footwear this figure was wearing- "Oh shit." Meepy looked up, a Jackal was stading above him, looking down at him with a Needle Rifle in hand. It let out a sick smrk and muttered something in it's language, and it pointed the Needle Rifle at Meepy and fired.

The needle went right into the top of Meepy's shoulder, and through down through his shoulder. Meepy's grip loosed and he started to fall back first onto the building. The building was too damaged to supprt his fall from floor to floor, so Meepy fell through the floors and roofs, down and down. To his surprise, he was alive, but barely. Each floor he broke through sent shivers and pain through his spine and up into his skull.

As long as this needle doesn't explode too quickly, I should be fine.

Meepy remembered the jetpacks that he had on his back; maybe those would work after a few bashes. Meepy had to time it correctly or else he would go head first into the layer of metal and concrete. 3, 2, 1; Meepy activated the jetpacks and flew out of a window that hadn't blown up. He angled himself upwards a bit a let the power die off and fell into a steady decline, every couple seconds activating the jetpacks to keep a steady momentum upwards to get as far away as possible from that jackal.

Meepy was pretty high up now, and the needle was hurting like a bitch. Meepy killed the power again and grabbed hold of the needle, careful not to trigger it, and started pulling it out slowly. There was a scraping noise coming from his shoulder area, torturing his eardrums. The needle was halfway out when Meepy let go of it and activated the jetpacks again, going higher and farther. He killed the power and continued to pull the needle out of his system.

The needle came out with a jerk and Meepy threw it off to the ground.

"Aaaaagh! What the fuck... I'm not cut... for... thi-" Meepy trailed off as a curtain of black surrounded him. Everything went silent and black as he went unconcious; yet he still retained his thoughts.

Why me? Why can't Loopy get shot through the face? I can't feel anything... I can't feel where I'm going, or what I'm doing.

A flash of white came into play, a flashback of base came to mind. Good times, I'll never forget them, Loopy and Pilger. The flashback stuck on the image of everyone putting their dog tags on the stick that Loopy carved. Definately never forget those guys.

Meepy floated off in the air as the image disintegrated, he couldn't help but feel absolutely hopeless. Meepy floated into conciousness as he was being brought aboard a purple cruiser of sorts, it looked like a Phantom. He was being carried by 2 large elites, one holding his arms, the other his legs, and he was being brought somewhere on the ship. As they carried him by, grunts screamed at him in their language, some in english, screaming out things like; "You killed my brother!... Demon!" Or something completely random like, "You killed Flipyap! We went to the academy together!" A couple elites or grunts would come up to me and kick me, or punch me, and the odd time shoot my chest with their plasma rifles.

They finally brought me to a room, completely devoid of much other life, except the odd marine they captured. They opened a barrier and threw me inside, and closed the barrier again. Unable to move or speak, I looked around at what I could see without moving me head. There were walls, and a cieling as far as he would see. Wait a minute;

There was another spartan in here, a blue color with plenty of plasma scorches on his armor, and many scratches... It couldn't be, Meepy thought, Pilger? Meepy put all of his strength into making out a couple words;

"Pilger? That you?"

The spartan jerked up and sat up against the wall, "Meepy? How the fuck did you get here?"

Meepy found the strength to say something else, "Shot by jackal, just in the shoulder, and ended up here. How about you?"

"You want the long version, or the short version?"  
"I've got nothing but time."

* * *

CHAPTER 12

"So, I was in a jeep, I just got out of the barnyard that I was teleported to. Had an epic throwdown with an elite; but anyways..."

Pilger drove down the same gravel road for miles, never turning, never stopping for signs. Pilger got bored of the continuation of things and he turned at the nearest left, going down another straight, long gravel road. A couple minutes down the road it started becoming more civilized, more urban as he went. The road turned to cement, the trees turned into houses, and eventually into buisness buildings and skyscrapers, and the dirt fields into sidewalks and plazas.

"The entire thing was very sudden, within 10 minutes of driving on this road I was in a complete city, a metropolis if you will, without many people. The people were packing up and leaving in pelicans, dropships, anything they could get their hands on that could give them transportation to another place. I quickly assumed that something evil was going on here, and that this was the place where the covenant were spotted."

Pilger drove into the city, further and further, it never seemed to stop; that was until his gas tank ran empty. He had been paying so much attention to the scenery that he hadn't bothered to look at his tank, or anything for that matter. He took the keys out of ignition and pocketed them, with intentions of coming back to the jeep for another ride once he had found a new source for feul. He threw his legs over the edge of the seat and got out, turned around and got his weapons out of the side seat. He put the sniper rifle on his back and held his DMR out in front of him, weary for enemies waiting to stick a sword through his face.

Pilger walked away from the jeep, towards a series of apartment buildings in hope of finding a cililian who knows the place, to tell him where to get some gas. He looked at papers and signs pasted everywhere, it looks like the last of everyone just got evacuated, so he was alone again. He kept walking, ignoring the fact that he just walked into a graveyard.

He walked past many houses and apartment buildings, not one gas station though. The only life he had seen in the city he had walked through were rats running in and out of sewer grates, nasty little buggers.

"So, there was no one there, the last of them had been evacuated and I was all alone again, just me and my guns." Pilger sighed, "I thought there would be someone to talk to."  
"So, what does this have to do with you getting on the ship?" Meepy asked.

"I'm getting to it, hush. Okay, where was I? Ah, right. I caught a small transmission when I was walking through the city..."

Pilger listened in on this conversation, it seemed to be between two people high up in the knowabouts of this whole mess. He listened;

"So these covenant? They're destroying all major cities? Everywhere?" One man said.

"Yes, sir, they seem to be attracted to where people have been or are currently situated, that;s why we transported them to Reach, to recolonise, we do not expect Earth to stand. They haved successfully razed a few cities, they are ruthless." Said the other man.

"Yes, so it seems. How much further until we have evacuated everyone?"

"It could take several more days, we're still waiting for the 'Go' from several ships to let us know that we can load them up again."

"A few days? We don't have a few days! The covenant will have us overrun and outnumbered by friday!"

Pilger checked the date, it was Wednesday.

"Yes, sir, I know. But we're working as fast as we can! We cannot produce any more vehicles without exhausting our materials needed to recolonise, and if we did that would defeat the entire purpose of this entire operation."

"Yes, okay, we need to stop transmission; they're coming towards the metropolis to the south and they may pick up the radio waves coming in. Stewart, out."

"Yes, sir, out." An abrupt beep ended the call, and Pilger shut off his radio.

"And I knew then that I was fucked, I knew they were talking about my city because I traced the waves before they ended."

"Huh, did they come?" Meepy asked.

"Yeah, they came, they came quick. They were over my position in les than an hour. I'll briefly tell you what happened."

Pilger got up and paced for a while until he heard the sounds of ships coming into the city and dropping off troops. He didn't move after that, just stood there waiting for them to come at him, and kill him. He heard the chatter of elites, grunts and jackals, and from what he could decipher from their language, they were going to split up and look around the cit in groups. If he heard right they were going to split up into 8 groups, 4 grunts, 2 elites and roughly 3 jackals each, not too much of a challenge for a spartan; as long as he kept his distance. He heard the first group coming up through the market square where he came from, and soon after he saw them. They were in sniping distance, so he did as instinct told him.

He went prone and looked down ths scope; "No sense wasting ammo on the grunts, I'll take those out later. I'll go for the elites first." He took aim at the elite on the far left side, towards the front. They were moving slow so they were nice targets for him. He scouted out the other elite so he could switch quickly and take both of them out quickly, and with control. He saw them both and aimed for the left one's jaw, 3, 2, 1; Pilger took a deep breathe and... Boom, headshot. He switched between the tagets, but they were too far ahead of Pilger, they took cover and called for backup. They didn't come out of cover until 2 more groups showed up, and at that point Pilger knew he was done, but he wouldn't go down without a fight.

He aimed at an elite's jaw and fired, headshot. He took aim at another one, aimed for the jaw, headshot. He lined up another shot, and headshot. He went to line up another shot, took aim and; click. He tried again, click.  
"Shit." He had no time to reload, so he took out his DMR and a couple frags, they were clsoing in on him now. Pilger shot at them, aiming for their ugly faces. they were still coming, and the DMR bullets weren't armor piercing the the sniper rounds. He threw a frag; the elites went into armor lock, but he took out 2 jackals and 4 grunts. He took more shots, and downed 2 jackals with 4 shots. He took more, and took care of the majority of the grunts with headshots, but soon enough the dreadful 'click' infiltrated his eardrums. He pulled a pistol off of his waistband and started firing, down the rest of the grunts and a couple jackals; the elites coming strong and fast, approaching quickly.

They were within 20 feet and threw down their weapons, and took out energy swords.

"So, how long did you last?" Meepy asked;

"I didn't. I didn't down a single one after that. And after they overwhelmed me, one of them whacked me upside the head and kocked me out, and as soon as I know it, I'm on this fucking thing, trapped like a damn animal."

"Ah, I see. Well, you did good; in my opinion."

"Thank you-" Pilger stopped talking when he noticed the barrier open and another soldier was thrown inside.

The solder was wearng maroon, but only some parts of his armor were there, his helmet, left arm, some right arm pieces, and his pelvis down. The entire middle part was missing and was replaced with bandages, which bled from when he was thrown in the cage.

"Loopy? What the hell?" Pilger questioned. The spartan looked up at them.

"Yeah, it's me. Fuckin' bullshit, this is."

"Good to see you though," Meepy said.

"Oh, wouldn't you love to hear my story?" Loopy said.

"Well, we've got time as far as we're concerned." Pilger said, shifting on the wall into the corner to make himself comfortable; Meepy still mostly laying on the ground, a little bit more propped up than before.

"Well, it started when..." Loopy started.

* * *

CHAPTER 13

"Well, it's funny that we've met up here, but I'm glad; reunions are always nice..."

"Loopy shut up and tell us what happened goddamnit!" Pilger yelled, "You've been reminiscing about how nice this is, but we just want to know what went down." Pilger glared at Loopy through his helmet.

"Alright, alright, calm down, 'tis all going to be okay-"

"I will break you." Pilger threatened.

"Alright! Jeez, aren't you mister sunshine-"

"TELL US THE BLOODY STORY!"

"Alright. It started with me and this marine, we did some stuff and I got stabbed through the chest; hence the bandages, and he gave me some salve stuff that would heal me, but the odd chance it would turn me into something similar to the flood. But that's not important." Meepy and Pilger looked at Loopy, jaw dropped. "The important thing is, that we ran into an entire fleet- like, an ENTIRE fleet. They were marching on our position..."

Loopy was trudging along, the blood drying on his chest and bandages, it was started to bleed again.

"Dude, we need to stop for a second, I'm bleeding again..."

"We can't afford to keep stopping like this! We need to keep going, the fleet could be on our tails and if we keep stopping then we will surely be broken into tiny, bite sized pieces! Now come on maggot-!"

Loopy broke into his sentence after the marine uttered that word. He held him by the throat 2 feet above the ground; "What did you just call me? you piece of shit?"

"I didn't mean it- sir- I just needed- to clarify my point!" The soldier gurgled and huffed betwen most words, making it difficult to make out the sentences. "We need- to keep- moving!"

"We'll move when I say we move. And you will keep your mouth shut unless I ask for your opinion," He threw the marine to the ground. He screamed and clutched him arm, "Oh shut up, you're lucky a broken arm is the only thing I've given you so far. Now get up."

"I saved your life! You should be happy and grateful towards me! You should praise me as-!"  
"Don't finish. I will break you if you say the last word. I heed no 'God', and I sure as hell don't need you telling me what to do!" Loopy picked the marine up by his collar and stood him up, "Now let's keep going."

They kept walking through the buildings, Loopy still continued to bleed, but he ignored it after a while as it had been happening ever since he got up. The walked for several minutes without uttering a word or a sound, the marine still clutched his arm and wimpered softly.

"Hey, I'm sorry for your arm... I lost it there for a moment." Loopy said, looking down at the marine.

"I-it's quite fine, sir, I did deserve it... I should'nt have insulted you, you're right." The marine grimaced as the pain shot up his arm and throbbed endlessly. "The jeep is just up ahead a ways, it shouldn't take us too much longer to get there," He looked behind him at the ruins of the city, "Doesn't look like we're being followed, would you like to sit down for a moment?"

"No, 'tis quite alright, actually. The blood has stopped coming and is drying over as we speak. I'm quite fine, I guess; the salve is working as far as I'm concerned... I'm not a zombie yet, am I?"  
The marine chuckled, "No, no falling limbs or strange muations. Looks like I did an alright job, eh?"

"Yeah, no shit." They laughed for a moment, but they were engulfed in their own pains before too long.

They approached a clearing, where it looked like a bombing of some sort went on.

"Looks like these markings are fresh, they were made not too long ago." Said Loopy, kneeling down and feeling the pavement.

"Yeah, the jeep's supposed to be here, but it looks like it's- Ah! There it is!" The marine pointed towards a ruined jeep, "It looks just barely operational, and I've got the keys right here!" The marine took a single key out of his pocket and showed it to Loopy.

"Great, let's go."

They went over to the jeep and climbed in, Loopy in the drivers seat, the marine in the passenger. Loopy put the key into the ignition and pushed it. The first attempt was unsuccessul, as was the second and third. Loopy got out of the seat and went to check the fuel, it was empty, or damn near it anyways; empty enough for the car to be unable to start.

"Goddamnit! The fuel is gone! Either someone jacked it, or it was gone when it got here. This is bull-!"  
An abrupt smack clashed against Loopy's head, and he fell to the ground. He heard the marine screaming and dying, quickly but painfully. He lulled himself into a deep trance, hoping to either sleep through his death or get rescued by someone in the attempt.

Loopy looked at Pilger and Meepy, "And then I woke up in the arms of a couple of elites, and they threw me in here, and who would of guessed that I'd meet up with you two again! What a goddamn surprise."

"Well, that wasn't as glorious as what I went through, or what Meepy here went through, but it works."

"Glorious? I got fucking stabbed through the chest and LIVED! I won the popularity contest here, and you two can't deny it! Nope, not a single argument that could change my mind."

"Loopy, shut up. We need to get a plan together on how it is we're going to get out of here. Now I overheard the elites saying something about a courtroom of some sort when they first put me in this cage, but of course they were speaking their native language so I couldn't get every word, but I got the jist of it. So, what are we gunna do?"

"I've got something." Meepy sat up a bit, speaking for the first time in a while. "It's gunna go down something like this..."


End file.
